"The most scathing criticism came from Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who launched into a lengthy monologue in which he deemed Gorton 'one of the most naive chairmen and CEOs I've ever run across. (...) Mr. Gorton, you seem to lack imagination about how your product can be deliberately misused by evildoers against this country.'"

Oups. That hurts. Gorton promised to do a better job about educating users and designing Limewire to avoid unwanted sharing of sensitive information.

His prepared statement also offers an interesting twist on the old fingerpointing game. Gorton told the Committee that ISPs should be forced to take a tougher stance against sharing of unlicensed content. From his statement:

"Internet Service Providers, ISPís, are a unique point of control for every computer on the Internet. Universities frequently function as their own ISPís, and a handful of universities have implemented notice based warning systems that result in the disconnection of users engaged in illegal behavior who ignore multiple warnings. These universities have sharply reduced child pornography and copyright infringement on their campus networks. Similar policies could be mandated for all ISPís in the United States. "

Gorton goes on by saying that the US Congress should pass laws to force ISPs to enforce copyright. This sounds like a dangerous idea to suggest - especially in times where politicians and lobbyists are pushing for government-mandated P2P filters on the ISP level. Granted, Gorton only wants ISPs to cut off repeat offenders. Investigating those offenses would likely still be done by rights holders. But he might just end up getting more than he can swallow.

Comments

What a bunch of crap. Anytime the government or the multinationals want to strongarm the proles, or simply use the power of law to intimidate folks who are exercising what has millinea of cultural precedent and implicit Constitutional protections. The notion of "intellectual property" was foreign to the founding fathers and did not exist until the advent of cheap music typesetting in the early 20th century. One needs to make a distinction between crass plagarism, where one wrongfully claims sole authorship, and the historical regard of any publicly performed work falling under the rightful 'ownership' of "the Commons". The general feeling was the criminal act revolved around the wrongful attribution of a work, not of it's reproduction once it had passed into the cultural "pool".